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Canada Post pay equity case: Cheques finally being mailed

In August, Canada Post starts mailing out cheques in a pay equity case that has dragged on for three decades. Gisele Morneau is waiting to pop champagne.

Gisele Morneau, one of the original complainants who filed the pay equity complaint in 1983 against Canada Post. Morneau has been keeping a bottle of Champagne since the beginning and plans to open it when she receives the money. (Jacques Boissinot for the Toronto Star)

Gisèle Morneau had always planned to take a cruise when Canada Post finally delivered her pay equity cheque.

But she never imagined that when she joined the original group of complainants back in 1983 that it would take more than three decades before there would be an ending.

And now, at 68, she simply doesn’t have the desire to travel.

“If it had come 10 years ago, I would have had the energy,” said Morneau in a telephone interview from her Quebec City home, joking she’ll have to settle for the short ferry ride to Lévis over the St. Lawrence River.

“It’s a late victory that has come too late,” she said. “Thirty years is too long.”

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Morneau never imagined it would drag on. When the case was first filed, she bought herself a small bottle of champagne, promising she wouldn’t open it until the day she received her pay equity settlement. “My champagne is still waiting, 30 years later.”

Morneau noted that so many friends and colleagues have already passed away and not been able to receive what they are owed.

“It’s so sad that those who should have won this pay equity battle died without knowing, and they weren’t able to share it with the people they loved,” she added.

Beginning on Aug. 1, Canada Post started sending out cheques to recipients or their estates, though it does not know how quickly it can determine amounts owed. Morneau has not yet received her cheque.

It must cover the wage gap for the years 1982 to 2002 plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest.

Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton said while payments begin in August, work continues to ensure complete information on those eligible including validating addresses.

“There is still a lot of work that needs to be done. It’s going to take some time,” he said.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada estimates as many as 30,000 people, predominantly women, could be eligible for a portion of the settlement, which is estimated at $250 million of which $100 million is interest.

Morneau says she doesn’t know how much she is owed, but the formula is very complicated.

“It will be more than $10,000, for sure,” she said, but added she will set aside 25 per cent for both provincial and federal taxes and put the rest into an annuity with an insurance company that has a guaranteed monthly payout over 20 to 30 years.

“It’s a little gift that I’m offering to my family, even after I am gone,” said Morneau, who celebrates her 50th wedding anniversary in September.

Morneau started working part-time for Canada Post in 1973 before moving to a full-time post in 1985, as the sole clerical staffer in the Loretteville office, handling everything from payroll to weekly statistics reports.

Because she prepared cheques, she could see the disparity in pay between those represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada — between the clerical workers, predominantly women, and postal carriers and sorting workers, predominantly men back then.

“I kept bringing it up at union meetings, along with others,” Morneau said. “It was not equitable. We had the same employer. Our salary difference was real and easily verified.”

Morneau believes the delay in the case — which went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2011 — was in part because Canada Post believed if it ignored the complaint it would go away.

“They didn’t want to face it. It was an adolescent attitude,” she said.

“Despite the delays, I never doubted for one instance the validity and importance of our case,” she said. “The more time they took to pay, the more they have to pay us.”

Since the Supreme Court ruling, the final battle was a dispute over how much interest is owed — with Canada Post and the union agreeing in June to a cumulative total of 90 per cent interest on the settlement.

In the end, Morneau says she’s pleased.

“The Supreme Court decision confirmed we were right, and validated the inequity,” Morneau said. “The Supreme Court is a court of justice, and justice has been served.”

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